We have such a strong need, as humans, to have an absolute authority on earth so that we ourselves do not have to do the work of discerning the will of God for our life. It is so much easier to simply delegate it and simply believe that if I do as I am told by this church or that I will be “right” 100% of the time. This is 1st half of life, tribal religious thinking. While it is important for formation, later in life it can become dangerous and is, no doubt, the cause of many wars and the untold violence many “religious” reap upon their brother or sister.
My personal values are indeed formed largely from my Catholic upbringing and studies and from careful prayer and discernment of God’s will for my life. Values cannot be more important than “God Himself” as it is through him and with him (not the institutional church) that we move and live and have our being.
When did I say “my values are more important than God wants me to know”…this is you,CC, asserting that the only way to approach God is to remain 100% in concert with the institutional Catholic church which is clearly not true. While the church provides a path to higher consciousness many have achieved enlightenment (Ghandi, MLK, Dali Lama, etc) through alternate paths…our God is not so limited. In fact the most enlightened of our day (eg. Catholic Thomas Merton), taught eastern philosophies and ideas born in Buddhism and other traditions to enrich the Christian journey. He did not have such a narrow point of view.
Simply, to learn how not to be right in ways that make others wrong.
Tsk,
So you want me to believe that you are in search of enlightenment and follow people and not Christ. To follow Christ is to recognize Him in the Church.
The Church is the Bride of Christ
The Church is the Body of Christ
Christ is Head of The Church
The Church is the Pillar and Foundation of Truth
The Church is the means by which the manifold wisdom of God is known
The Church is the means by which Gentiles are made fellow heirs with Christ…
Of course this comes from the Bible which you say you will not subjugate your values to as you said this…
**to words in the CCC, the Bible, or other church teachings **
So you want to follow people that provide you solace in believing you are following teachings that suit your beliefs and deny that the teachings of the Church are God given. That is what you want to do.
You want me to learn how not to be right in a way so as to make others wrong. Did Jesus teach this?
Good Rabbi…why do you call me good…God alone is good
Why did Moses allow Divorce…in the beginning it was not so
You forgive sins on a sabbath…which is greater to forgive sins or to take up yourself and walk…
He was constantly making the Pharisees wrong…and God is love and Jesus was the God/man…God is not in the business of pleasing you or causing you to feel that it is important that when right it must be done so as not to make you wrong.
Right is right and wrong is wrong. You believe in no absolutes. I see your problem. It is what Tsk wants to do and allowed to do to feed the created passions and desires that allow Tsk to stay distant from the God that created him so as to speak against the Church that the creator established so as to know fully what He wants from you. I undertand you completely.
And now the end is near,
And so I face the final curtain
My friend I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, all of which I’m certain
I lived a life, a life that’s full
I’ve travelled each and every highway
And more, much more than this, I did it may way
Tsk…heard this before…many do it…
If you want to be a child of God, then recognized God as Father, and as a good Father tells you
don’t cross the street without looking both ways
Eat your vegetables
Respect others
Don’t dabble in the occult
Homosexual acts are immoral
The Father uses the Son, through the Church to do the same thing…this is what you will find in Veritiatis Splendor…when the will is aligned with God’s Will and not Tsks will then you will know true freedom and all this nonsense about enlightenment, love’s work, being right so as not to be wrong will fade away…
Be a child, listen to the Father, learn that there is right and wrong and moral and immorral…How can something be absolutely immorral, stated to be immoral, taught that it is immoral in your paradigm stated correctly and properly and then stated so as to not make someone else wrong. You can’t do it and that is not the love of the Father…Love is willing God to someone…how can you Will God to someone with wishy washy…this is right and proper and I don’t want you to be wrong because I love you?